Tech
Spotify now worth more than America's entire music industry
by Tyler Munro
April 22, 2015
Tidal meanwhile is a spectacular failure.
Tidal is crashing and burning. Jay Z’s supposedly revelatory streaming service has already fired its CEO, 25 of its staffers and dropped out of iTunes’ Top 700 apps, all within weeks of its launch. The streaming behemoth it aimed to beat, meanwhile, is cooking with gas: According to the Wall Street Journal, Spotify is now worth more than the entire US Recorded Music Industry.
The rest of the world, we’d imagine, is next.
Spotify recently nabbed another $400 million in funding from various investors, putting their overall value at around $8.4 billion. Consequence of Sound points out, however, that the Recording Industry Association of America values itself at around $7 billion.
Where the numbers get a little confusing is considering international lines. Spotify can jump bigger than the United States because it also operates outside of them; it was, as you might remember, initially a Swedish service. But it’s still indicative of something—in America, streaming accounts for less than 30 per cent of the RIAA’s revenue, so while Spotify has reportedly not yet turned a proper profit, its time is coming.
Even if vinyl’s resurgence keeps going, and even if it somehow hits these marks, which is very unlikely, it’s undoubtedly too little too late. Like it or lump it, Spotify is truly, madly, deeply here to stay.
